Signs Of Neglect Fill Cha Complex

Elderly Cope In A Rundown Building

December 04, 1989|By Melita Marie Garza.

If it weren`t for the smell, Andrew Williams` body might still be lying in bed where he succumbed to an epileptic seizure.

It wouldn`t be the fault of his friends or the more than 200 other apartment dwellers he lived with. When Williams didn`t show up for church one Sunday, his friend Betty McCain sent her 10-year-old son to look for him.

The boy rang the buzzer, but there was no answer. The McCains thought he was out, even though his car had not been moved from its parking spot. The buzzers had been broken for more than a month, but they didn`t know that.

Residents warned management for three days of the situation, but authorities did not enter the apartment until the odor of his decomposing body saturated the hall.

``That smell, once you smell it, you never forget it,`` said Terry Williams, another tenant who is no relation to the dead man.

Terry Williams and the other residents of the Chicago Housing Authority`s Wicker Park Senior Citizens apartment building at 2020 W. Schiller St. don`t think it is right that people have to die, and be dead for three days at that, before they get attention from the management.

So a group of them banded together to fight a system that they say neglects and deliberately ignores them. They listed their grievances, called State Sen. Miguel del Valle (D., Chicago) and the media and staged a news conference.

The complaints led to a meeting in mid-November between Del Valle and CHA Chairman Vincent Lane. Katie Kelly, a CHA spokeswoman, said that as a result, Lane had pledged to improve conditions.

Meanwhile, the residents recently reported a 74-year-old resident, Angelo Delleo, for terrorizing residents with a rifle. Shakespeare District police said they found a .22 caliber Remington rifle in Delleo`s apartment. Delleo, who had served 17 years for armed robbery, was charged with aggravated assault, illegal possession of a weapon and failure to register the weapon with the city and the state, said Officer Michael Lazzaro.

The pressure has prompted CHA to begin covering the beige walls in the hallways with fresh white paint and to open common rooms that had been closed. ``These are things that we have been complaining about to management for months,`` Terry Williams said. ``Black, white, yellow or blue, we are elderly people who have worked hard and we don`t deserve to be dumped on.``

The living is difficult in the 26-year-old red brick building. Nauseating garbage odors permeate the first floor. A foyer billboard announces weekly events such as bingo, music and crafts, but residents say these activities never are held.

Odors distinguish one windowless hallway from another. The sixth floor reeks of urine, the fourth floor of fried fish and the three upper floors are stifling hot and smell like garbage. Rain leaks into some rooms through rotted weather stripping, and residents try to block odors by taping cardboard to the bottom of their doors.

The buzzers were to be fixed last week, but as of Sunday residents said that they were not repaired.

Officer Al Lopez, of the Shakespeare District elderly and disabled division, said a number of burglary complaints there showed no sign of forced entry and yielded few clues, partly because residents fear reprisals from management.

Andrew Williams` sister said she was disturbed to find several items missing from his apartment: the gold chain he always wore around his neck, his watch and a radio.

Del Valle said many of the problems could be solved through better management practices, but a 70 percent reduction in federal funding for public housing makes this difficult.

``These people need someone in the building all the time who cares about them,`` Lopez said. ``They don`t do much for these poor, helpless people.``